A server computer system often includes multiple processing units called nodes. A node typically includes a main circuit board known as a motherboard. The motherboard hosts one or more central processing units and some associated memory. Each node in a server system may be connected via cables to one or more data storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical disk drives and the like. While a node may be connected to multiple data storage devices, generally a data storage device is connected to only one node.
For each data storage device, one or more visual indicators are provided to display information related to disk activity and error status for the device, as well as to “locate” the device by visually distinguishing it from other similar devices when necessary for maintenance or replacement activities. Illumination elements such as light-emitting diodes (“LEDs”) are typically used for this purpose. It is often necessary to mount these visual indicators on the server enclosure at a distance from the storage devices to which they correspond. A hard-wired backplane is used in prior art server systems to connect the storage devices in a fixed manner to certain predetermined ones of the visual indicators mounted on the server enclosure. The backplane may be a printed circuit board.
Manufacturers allow customers to choose various configurations of nodes and storage devices when the customers purchase server systems. For example, one server configuration might specify four nodes with three storage devices per node. Another server configuration might specify two nodes with six storage devices per node. Yet another server configuration might specify two nodes with four storage devices per node and so on. In prior art server systems, each such configuration corresponded to a different backplane design. Thus a manufacturer had to produce as many different backplanes as the number of server configurations that it wanted to offer to its customers.